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George YeoMinister of Foreign Affairs, Singapore. Guest Columnist of BeyondSG. He is on Facebook. Readers are welcome to join his Facebook network at http://www.facebook.com/georgeyeopage

Harold FockEntrepreneur (Chief Editor of BeyondSG).
Deputy CEO/CFO of a listed technology company in Asia and CEO of Foundation Capital Pte Ltd, a hedge fund based in Singapore.

February 20, 2010

The Jewel of Muscat and the Tang Cargo

On 16 February, Zainul Abidin waved off the crew of an
Omani dhow as it set sail on a long voyage to Singapore, stopping by at Cochin,
Galle, Penang and Malacca.The dhow is a
replica of an ancient ship which carried a cargo of over 60,000 pieces of pottery
and other artefacts from the Tang Dynasty in the 9th century.This is an interesting story about which a
book should one day be written.

Almost ten years ago, a young German shipwreck explorer
wrote to me when I was Minister of Trade and Industry about a wreck that had
been salvaged some 500 miles south of Singapore in sandy shallow waters near
the island of Belitung.It was a
significant find, probably the oldest bearing such a huge cargo.He said it would be a pity for the cargo to
be sold off in pieces.Singapore should
acquire and display it, and tell this wonderful story about the maritime silk
route.The east-west trade which waxed
and waned over the centuries is of course what continues to give life to
Singapore.

I agreed to see him, not sure how serious the offer was.
When Iexamined the pictures, I knew
this was something important.But where
to find the money?Tourism Board saw
value in it but could only stump up a certain amount.Luckily, through Ong Beng Seng who had an
interest in wrecks, we were able to persuade the Khoo Foundation tofinace the rest.That's greatly simplifying what actually
happened because along the way, there were many twists and turns.

After I left MTI in 2004, the deal was closed and STB
owned the treasure.

However, there is much researchto be done about so many different aspects of
the cargo, the ship, the times.The
pottery pieces came from kilns all over China, the greatest number from
Changsha.They included a few precious
blue-and-whites, precursor of the classic Ming. Reflecting the period, the
motifs were Taoist, Buddhist, Islamic and Central Asian.That was the age of Tang, Sriwijaya, Nalanda
and the Abbasids.There was also a small
collection of gold and silver ornaments intended for some West Asian
potentate.Mysteriously,a Chinese brush set with pieces of ink still
dry was also found.Was a minor Chinese
official onboard?

The ship itself was not Chinese but a West Asian
dhow.When I visited Oman about three
years ago, I was shown a replica of the Sinbad ship.After I described the Tang cargo dhow to the
Deputy Minister accompanying me, I asked half seriously if the Omanis could
build a replica for us.I knew the
Omanis had an unbroken dhow-building tradition going back a long time.

The Foreign Minister responded enthusiastically and,
within a few months, Sultan Qaboos offered to build the ship and donate it as a
gift to Singapore.As it turned out,
Oman is likely to be the place where the Tang cargo dhow was built over a
thousand years ago.The square stitching
pattern of the dhow is the same pattern used in Zohar today.DNA testing of the wood showed that the trees
grew in Africa, except for the teak which came from the Malabar Coast.Oman of course had long links tothe Swahili,Konkan andMalabar coasts. Bingo!

Apart from modern navigation aids, the Jewel of Muscat is
built according to the old design, with no engine and will sail with the
monsoons. Even without the cargo, the vessel is crammed (18m long, 6.5m wide)
and no passenger will be carried.The
voyage itself will not be without risk.I hope the weather will be clement and look forward to welcoming the
dhow safely into our waters, Insyallah, in July.